In Martin Heidegger's understanding, existence is not isolated but intertwined. People acknowlege their existence by interactions with their surroundings.
Architecture is a role between human beings and the world. It acts as a medium affacting people's behavior, perception and experience, and organizing the order of its context. Architecture builds connections between different elements, and brings people to a place where they can communicate with the world.
Role in Team: Development Design / Conceptual Model / Fianl Model / Technical Drawing
Location: Tangkou, China
The project locates in Tangkou, a village in southern China, where the fabrics and original space of the village are well preserved. The client runs a company related to cultural and art industry, and this project will provide space for organizing exhibition or activities, and selling artistic products. O-Office proposes an architectural concept that connects to the typology, history, and daily life of the village, and through the study of local material, scale, and landscape to maintain people's perception of the vernacular feeling.
The design consists of two new volumes for exhibition and workshop space for artists, a new roof for an iconic wall with arches, and platforms for exhibition and shop in the existing long building. Some walls and buildings are demolished to open the space to public. The circulation combines landscape, inner space, and semi-open space, bringing visitors walking through space at different heights and seeing different views.
My work here started from the conceptual stage to the completeness of the design. I made the massing model for conceptual design(1/100), the final model showing space(1/50), and detail model to study specific tectonic strategies(1/10). I also did part of the technical drawings such as section and plan, and digital modeling.
DiaoLou, a type of watchtower in ancient time of the area.
Building in the village
The project locates in the village where most original buildings, farmlands, and natural landscape are well preserved. The design is supposed to provide connection to the vernacular context and people's life.
Intervention
Volume
Two new volumes are added in the project. One is at the cornor, facing towards an open space, the other is inserting into the existing long building as a connection between the interior space and the public garden.
Relation
A roof is designed to cover the existing wall with arch, which also provides a public garden for the village. Two new volumes stay close to the scale of the buildings in the village, which brings affinity with the surroundings.
Exhibition Hall
Workshop
Roof for Garden
1. Exhibition Hall
2. Public Garden
3. Workshop
4. Shop & Exhibition
5. Storage
1/50 Model
Showing how visitors will move between landscape and inner space.
Model
5mm T-Steel for edge finishing
1% Outward slope
Fixing bolt
Wooden beam
240x220x10mm Horizontal tile layering
M20 Cement mortar (with 3% waterproofing agent)
1/10 Roof Unit
STAY IN INUJIMA
6/2022
Team member: Linggu GAO, Ye ZHOU
Location: Inujima, Japan
Tutored by: Kazuyo Sejima, Lars Jonas Hugo Elding, Francesca Singer, Giulia Setti
Grade: 30/30+
In 2010, the first Art Festival of Seto Inland Sea was held in Japan. One of its important role was to bring visitors to the islands of this area that was undergoing an declining process by means of developing art projects. Among these islands, Teshima and Naoshima are well known thanks to famous architects like Tadao Ando and Ryue Nishizawa. In the same year, Kazuyo Sejima started her art project in Inujima, which responded to the problem of aging and industrial decline by working with artists and architects.
This project is a Master-degree studio of Politecnico di Milano led by Kazuyo Sejima. Different from providing a 「 beautiful 」 design to attract tourists, our proposal is to create a sustainable project for Inujima, responding to the landscape, life and history of the place. In our concept, building the relation between local and visitors is the key idea of architecture. Three sites are selected from the village to the natural environment, and we designed hotel for visitors and studio space for artists. Facilities and activities of the intervention are connecting to the existing system in the village. Visitors will therefore 「live」 in the island.
Semi-open space that similar to ENGAWA, which is an raised wooden floor where people can stay in traditional Japanese architecture is created in our design. It represents a philosophy that stay connection with the place people are living, which is transcendent in Japanese culture.
Location of Seto Inland Sea in Japan
Engawa in Japanese architecture
EXISTING TOURIST SYSTEM OF SETO INLAND SEA
Currently, ship is the main transportation of Seto Inland Sea, from which we know Inujima is not well connected to the whole system. Besides, Inujima also lacks in tourism equipment compared to other islands. According to this, we defined our project as hostel and studio, which provides place for visitors and artists to stay.
PROPOSAL
Site A
Original walls of the existing building was replaced by engawa, which allows communications between visitors and villagers
Site B
The new building is designed as an exhibition house. Its scale remains the same as the existing buildings. The building adopts a curve roof where people can stay and have a better view towards the eastern landscape
Site C
Volumns are connected by corners to enlarge the views of the rooms. Engawa here is a place where people enjoy the surrounding natural landscape.
0 5 10m
0 5 10m
0 5 10m
MILANO X
10/2020
Team member: Linggu GAO, Shangtong HUANG, Wujingting ZENG
Location: Milan, Italy
Tutored by: Fabiano Lemesde Oliveira, Stefano Di Vita
Grade: 30/30+
Individual modification in 2023
This project is a redesign of Milano Rogoredo, a railway station locates in south-east Milan. Urban systems of the city were analysed in various scales. In metropolitan scale, the site is at the fringe area of the city, where city texture becomes fragmented, and density becomes low. The railway system connects the area with the other parts of the city as well as cities surrounding Milan. And as for the green system, the site is between the edges of the green belt of the city. The issues in this area almost come from the conflicts between different urban systems in the fringe area, which results in ciaos and unorderd urban space.
In order to solve this problem and arouse the potential of this area, we proposed a new city center for south-east Milan, which will build an order for the fregmented urban space. Two axis are created as new order: The urban axis will bridge the gap brought by the railway, and the green axis will connect the green system. Public space system is created along the urban axis. Urban space and building roofs are used as green area to create habitats for birds, incests and pollination. These two axises will create guidelines for the subsequent development of this area, and will build the order of the urban space.
The center of the two axis is a plaza planted with trees. With high density and mix-use usings surround, this central plazza creates a place for leisue and communication, and will become a new symbol and identity for south-east Milan.
LEGEND
Genova
Density
Convolted edges Mix use Mosaic network Street Transit orient development Green patches
Jane Jacobs Peter Calthorpe
Richard T.T. Forman
GREEN
AXIS Pedestrian system
Green system
connection
connection
Urban axis
Green axis
Central plazza
STRATEGY
BUILDING DIVERSITY
Mix use
Diverse street
BUILDING NEIGHBORHOOD
Open space for street
Neighborhood park Mix group of people
15-min neighborhood
STRATEGY
GREEN CONNECTION
INTRODUCING DENSITY
Green patches
High rise
Local flora
Mix use
Sponge city
Urban spacce for gathering
STRATEGY
A DIVERSE CENTER
High line park
Central plazza
Public buildings
Connection to streets
Shops
Transit hub
STRATEGY
URBAN GREEN
Forming urban space
Providing density
Buildings connecting with nature
Green patches
Local flora
Sponge city
DIALOGUE WITH SKY
6/2018
Individual work
Location: Shantou, China
Tutored by: Shaoyi LIU, Zhongqi LI
Grade: 95/100
Since ancient times, Chinese people have emphasized the connection with their environment and surrounding materials, and through this to understand their existence. In philosophy, China is also different from the west, which is keen to discuss the essence and rational type of things. For instance, the imitation of the specific form of landscape in the garden, the figuration of stupa in the Buddhist architecture, and Chinese Calligraphy, all proves that China is more inclined to understand the world through the phenomenon.
However, industrial construction has begun to separate people and objects since entering the modern time, and people have gradually lost contact with the material world they live in. Cartesian geometry began to replace the complex architectural form and shaped what modern city looks like. It seems that people can no longer find their connection with the heaven and the earth via architecture, and the architecture itself also lost its original poetry and degenerated into an abstract geometry.
This design aims to find out the prototype of the relationship between the Chinese collective memory and the heaven and the earth, through which to arouse people's awareness of their existence. Roof types of traditional architecture are studied to understand their relations with human perception. They act as the medium between people and the natural background, connecting people to their living place.
Relationship between Man and the sky in differnet philosophy
The Figure Ground of Roof-Sky
FORMS THAT DIALOGUE WITH THE SKY
The relationship between the perception of roofs and sky in the Forbidden City is introduced in the project. Forms are generated from the abstraction of this relation, which enhances people's perception of their existence.
Meridian Gate
Hall of Supreme Harmony
Hall of Central Harmony
Hall of Preserving Harmony
Elegant Moon Gate
Hall of Imperial Zenith
Prestressed Steels
Prestressed Steels
Low-E
Insulation
Curtain
Suspended Ceiling
Wooden Beams
Wooden Beams
Glass
Steel Beam
Concrete on Metal Deck
Topping Slab
Aluminum Mullion
Aluminum Transom
OTHER WORKS
INTERNSHIP WORKS
MOZHAO ARCHITECTS
The founder of MOZHAO ARCHITECTS, Guansheng ZENG, was graduated from Harvard GSD and after years' experience in CCDI Shenzhen and URBANURS, he started his own office.
[Renovation of Z House / Concept Design & Model / 2019]
Presenting model of the client's house. We spend time to reorganize the inner space of the original building to build connection between different rooms.
[Renovation of Apartment/ MOZHAO ARCHITECTS/ Concept Design & Model / 2019]
The client want to turn the original hospital into an apartment. These models show our strategies to create a vertical connection.
ZHUTAO STUDIO
Tao ZHU is the professor of Hongkong University. He followed Kenneth Frampton when he studied in Columbia University.
[House N95 / Model & Build / 2020]
ZHUTAO Studio proposed a concept of House N95 in an exhibition after the first pandemic peak in China. It was a half of a geodesic dome that represents the Covid virus. The office invited artists to show their art works based on the Covid topics in the structure, raising people's disscussion on their lockdown life.
JUSTOPEN ARCHITECT
Rendering of interior design for client's house in Rotterdam
O-OFFICE
O-Office is found by Jianxiang HE and Ying JIANG, and is one of the advanced design office in China. Their project Photography Museum of Lianzhou won the 2024 RIBA Architecture Prize
[BaoYuan Road Building Renovation / Physical Model / 2024]
A renovation design for a building on Baoyuan Road in Guangzhou. The design proposed a new facade and a new stair to the
roof to create openess to the city. [Model was made with: Xuetian LIANG, Xuying ZOU ]
